Impacts of teacher racial diversity on Pennsylvania and TESD schools disproportionate diversity Desegregation and the teachers of color shortage

In the 1960s, before desegregation, only 5% of Black students attended integrated schools, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. By 1970, that number rose to more than 90%.

According to Cindy Long from the National Education Association, while desegregation was a major step forward for the civil rights movement, Black teachers in segregated schools had provided much-needed support for Black students. During integration, however, their numbers dropped, as many white parents and school board members didn’t want white students having Black teachers.

By Jui Bhatia, Aren Framil and Soumya Sathyanarayana, Managing Editor, Co-Design Editor and Co-Webmaster

When sophomore Senae Harris thinks back to her time at Valley Forge Elementary School, she recalls walking through the hallway and seeing the only Black teacher in the school — one who never taught her.

“In elementary school, I didn’t even have the only African American teacher in the school, Mrs. Hayes, but just seeing her in the hallway made me feel so special,” Harris said. “Seeing somebody that looks like you makes you feel like you can do anything.”

In 2017, when Harris completed fourth grade, she was one of the 40% of the 532 students at Valley Forge Elementary School whose guardians identi ed them as people of color. In the same year, 9% of the 32 teachers at the school self-reported as non-white.

Today, these percentages remain the same at a district-wide level. At the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, 40% of the Tredy rin/Easttown School District’s student body self-reported as non-white during registration, as did 9% of the sta , according to Dr. Oscar Torres, Director of Equity and Public Programs for TESD.

At Conestoga, the pattern is similar to the district as a whole, with 37% of students and 9% of teachers self-reporting as nonwhite (see pg. 3, Fig. 1).

In 2021, TESD ranked second in Chester County in teacher diversity a er Coatesville Area School District.

Across Pennsylvania, 99% of public school districts have a lower racial diversity rate among their teaching sta than among their student population, according to the nonpro t research education organization Research for Action.

In April 2022, RFA released its project “ e Need for More Teachers of Color,” which investigated the racial diversity among teachers in Pennsylvania. In e study found that in 36% of Pennsylvania public school districts, there is not one teacher of color, and in 56% of Pennsylvania public school districts, teachers of color make up less than 5% of the teaching sta .

In 7% of districts — including TESD — teachers of color make up 5-20 percent of the teaching sta (see pg. 3, Fig. 3).

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“With limited professional options, many well-educated Black people became teachers who passed on a thirst for knowledge to their pupils. ey developed rigorous curriculum that challenged and inspired them, and though society told Black children that they were second-class citizens, educators taught them that they had the same inner resources and potential as any human being,” Long wrote in an article for the NEA.

In the decades a er the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which declared racial segregation in schools unconstitution-

Black teachers were an important factor in the drive to desegregate schools, as well. However, according to Vanessa Siddle Walker, author of the book “ e Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought For Justice In Schools,” which details how southern Black educators fought for justice in schools, they had a di erent vision for education.

“What they wanted was access—to newer school buildings and textbooks, bus transportation, science equipment, and playgrounds,” Walker said in an interview with e Atlantic.

“ ey wanted for Black children what many white people already had for their children.”

But this wasn’t the outcome. Pushback from white administrators, parents and teachers who didn’t want Black educators teaching white children led to an overall decline in Black teaching sta .

“It was (Black educators’) expectation that integration would retain the aspiration and advocacy, and they would gain access.” Walker said. “Instead, with integration, they closed most of the Black schools and red many of the Black teachers — there goes the aspiring school climates.”